I'm curious ... can people describe their Lararium and where they have them? I always like to know what others are doing.

I have a shelf in front of my bedroom window that faces East (towards Rome). It's covered with a white scarf. On it I have a white pillar candle in a crystal holder for Vesta, a simple stick incense burner, a small saucer for libations, and a small sculpture of Juppiter. For my Lares I have a pewter statuette of a bear given to me by my parents, a sort of a totem animal for the family as you might have guessed by my cognomen.

Mine is on the mantelpiece, in the middle of the main wall, facing east just like yours. It doesn't look *exactly* like a lararium (no columns or genius depictions), or not the ones I usually see anyway. I have photographs of my family members, both parents, close relatives and also of my ancestors some generations back. I have perfumed candles, some incense to burn and an oil lamp with Minerva's owl on it. There's also a bronze horse figurine depicting the original one named "Demeter's Horse" which my aunt had brought from Crete (or Rhodes, can't remember really) and a bamboo shoot I bought the other day to put up there so it would look more lively. The fireplace is a fake one, nothing we can light up but I have put lots of pillar candles inside and I burn them simulating a fireplace, and it looks really good. Oh and I have some coins too, maybe it will work as a sympathetic magic!

Anyway, I too would like to see some more posts on this topic here, isn't it one of everyone's favorites?

A question to start with maybe: Do you know what the nearest festival is in Religio Romana? My calendar says it is the Thesmophoria, mysteries of Ceres and Proserpina, started on the equinox. Has anyone celebrated this? If so, how do you celebrate the equinox and/or the mysteries?

Well, I think the reason why the activity isn't as vigorous as on the ol' mailing list is mainly because our "big cannon" in the Religio department, Marcus Horatius, is ill and doesn't have enough energy to be an active contributor here.

As for a Lararium... actually I don't have one. Although I do think it's a good thing to be close to your family in that respect, I don't really feel a family bond. I wouldn't call myself alienated or anything of the sort, but a lot of sh*t has passed in the family that makes me unable to actively worship my ancestors as divine spirits.

A real Lararium, I believe (if a bit corny), is a place in the heart where you keep your relatives alive. And your genes of course .

If one feels enough in contact without a lararium, I think it is fine also. I started mine as putting the photos of my family members and things dear to me and later adding statues, candles and other objects I like and find suitable for a lararium. I live abroad, a 10 hour distance by plane from my family and I miss them all very much, so this is a good way for me to keep in contact with them in my own way. True, I talk on the phone with my immediate family, but I have a chance to honor my late grandmother, and two grandfathers on my lararium.

And I always pray for my Gens, and the wellbeing of the societies I am in.

A lararium is a very personal thing, especially in our times, when the Religio is not the family and state religion and not everyone in the house practicing it. Thus, it should be bhuilt in away (if ever) most comfortable to the owner.

Anyway, that was my point on the subject. Hopefully, this forum be a livelier one

Hiera Iulia Minervina, I didn't ignore your response, and in fact found it interesting. It is merely I wished to hear from a great deal more people. This college was perhaps the main reason I joined SVR in the first place, and as a half ignorant neophyte I need some community support

As for the festivals, I really don't follow them or observe them. It seems to me the whole point of a festival was to share a religious experience in the open with the multitudes, which is clearly impossible as of now given the extremely small numbers of practitioners scattered across the globe. Maybe in another generation or two we'll have the numbers ... who knows. As for now I confine myself to morning and evening prayers in front of my lararium. I can tell someone is definately listening to me

I'm rather close to my family and so I do find Lares reverence an imperative. In fact, I believe very strongly the soul of my departed grandfather resides with me and watches over me. For those who feel their family neglected them or abused them or otherwise betrayed them, I understand clearly why they would not want to honor them, but this was not the case with me.

May the Far Shooter at Delphi heal our resident religious scholar, so he may return to the college and inspire us again with his knowledge.

BOOM! After some illness, the Big Cannon had to figure out why this list kept refusing to recognize my registration name and codes. So this is the first opportunity I have had to check in on the list.

My lararium. Properly it use to be by my northern front door, in the northeast corner of the house, as it is customary in my family to think of the north as the abode of the gods and the Lares in the northeast. Now I keep it in my bedroom as I am often there, sometimes confined to that part of the house. The structure was built by my father. It is made of wood with a peaked roof, a back wall and two pillars in front Lit from within. Inside is our Lar familiaris who is Ma'auissa Ferentina, the goddess you call Ceres. She is flanked by two statues of the Penates. There are also bowls for offerings, candles, small Roman pillars for altars, and some other things inside it. Like I keep a supply of mola salsa inside the lararium. Nearby are photographs of family members going back five generations. Then what makes it a lararium is a special guardian that possesses a numen.

In other parts of the house are other little shrines to various deities, and not all are Roman. Being that I live in the US I pay respects to the geni loci. Most of my worship though is performed outdoors, so I have set up altars at different places in the yard, there are six of them, including the main one in the Hortus Cereri.

Finally I can get back in, I seem to be jinxed regarding access to SVR

My lararium consists of statues of various Egyptian gods, with Isis in the prime postion of course, plus an offering bowl, a second bowl to receive libations, candlesticks, lamps, photos, incense, a vase containing water from a holy well, fresh flower during a festival or feast day, and various specifically Isiac sacra, including a wooden casket and a sculpture of a left hand. All this is located on the mantlepiece of a large victorian fiireplace in my living room, which faces east, for no good reason other than that was the way the fireplace was built. I now have a second shrine in the bedroom as somebody gave me a second staue of Isis and I didn't want her feeling left out. I am considering constructing an outdoor altar in the garden, inspired by a fellow Isiac who has sculpted a very impressive neo-classical Isiac altar for his garden.

Finally, access to the forum again! Blessed be this day, and a huge thank you to Atticus for his help in resolving the problem.

My lararium exists in two parts, both reside in our bedroom, and both face South. One contains statues of Egyptian gods/goddesses, carved wooden and stone boxes and bowls (for libations, incense, and sacred objects), a replica of a coptic jar, and small works of art created by myself and friends. On the second altar are photographs of my family and a vase for wildflowers from walks around the lake. These are flanked by a statue of Hathor as the cow goddess, and another of Isis .

One of my interests is herbalism. To persue that interest I keep a large assortment of herbs in my gardens, over a hundred different herbs, and I also enjoy foraging different areas around my state of Ohio. Where I live there are some Hopewell mounds and some other sites by later native Americans. Occasionally I will come upon a spirit that I may take to be that of a native American, or a genius loci whom I would assume to be one accustomed to native American practices moreso than that of my Roman ancestors. What rites I perform are still those of my tradition, offering back some of what I grow which includes native plants, and I might offer copal as an incense rather than an incense I would offer my ancestors.

I forgot about your question on the pillars. The ones I use in my lararium as altars were gifts, I think from Pier 1. They have ceramic and marble pillars. Larger ceramic pillars, of various sizes, can be found at most garden centers. For my outdoor altars I built using stones, a large flat stone on top, then with a marble table top. Some are large enough to serve as a stone bench, others only a pillar of stones about a meter tall.

It is less an actual Lararium than one functionally, I think. In a corner of the kitchen where my stove (hearth) sits, I have made a semi-formal worship space. Here I have a small tripod incense-holder which I picked up at a long-ago Renaissance Faire; it is very Roman-looking, and I fill it with sand and park a cone of incense on top. The kind of incense varies with the occasion and what I am trying to evoke or celebrate; there are scents that are traditional to my Christian faith, ones that I have learned are associated with different Roman Gods or festivals, and those most appropriate to the Native-(South-)American aspect of my spirituality.

Behind the tripod, at the back of the stove, I have memorial objects of various sorts representing the deceased of my familia, which as some of you know has more canine members than human.

I have not extensively researched any of my practices; as you may gather from the above, my spirituality is a complicated thing, and I have had to go mostly by feel. I honor my God above all, but acknowledge and respect the Roman Gods too, and They have acted a few times in my life. I am also on very good terms with beings of a less-definite sort, honoring ancestor-spirits and the numina of woods and streams on an almost-daily basis. In particular I have made offerings on-site to the genius of a certain creek that runs most of the way from my home to the bus stop, and do rain-dances when it seems to be getting too low.

I have never set up an altar anyplace. I do have special 'sacred' spots in the woods and along the creek where I often meditate or simply hug the Earth.

[Marius looks all around him, taking in the entire grounds of the suddenly--yet thoroughly--abandoned Temple. He knows he's new here; he knows he's not the same religion as many of those who frequent the place; and he's been wondering now for the last 20 days whether he has committed a grievous breach of ettiquette by posting here. But on the offchance that well-intentioned newcomers might yet be welcome, he'll settle for:]
Was it something I said...? >({(:-|

It is a little quiet in the temples at this time of year. Out plowing the fields, pruning back the vinyards, in preparation of the season to come.

Marius Peregrine wrote:[Marius looks all around him, taking in the entire grounds of the suddenly--yet thoroughly--abandoned Temple. He knows he's new here; he knows he's not the same religion as many of those who frequent the place; and he's been wondering now for the last 20 days whether he has committed a grievous breach of ettiquette by posting here. But on the offchance that well-intentioned newcomers might yet be welcome, he'll settle for:] Was it something I said...? >({(:-|

[Marius creeps back into his mousehole and renews a vow of silence.]

Of course you are welcome here. I found your description of your practices most illustrative. Properly Roman too. Most moderns I run into think of a lararium as a shrine to their gods, which it is not. Perhaps a modern convenience to concentrate all their religious activity into one space, where ancient practice would have been more on the order you describe. A place in the house for the ancestors, and little shrines all around the neighborhood for spirits that held special significance to worshipers. And Christian Romans would have continued their ancestral practices to the lares and geni loci while still worshiping their one god in His places, just as you describe. Exclusiveness came later.

I'm passing the time by trying to read everything in the library on the religio. Not much out there, I'm afraid, though I don't exactly live in an educational mecca.

Romulus Iulius Ursus

No there is not a lot of material specifically on the Religio Romana available. Some that is available is terribly out of date. A good source for discussions on the Religio Romana is the Journal of Roman Studies (JRS) where academics argue over obscure points. It is in the older editions that you will find Momigliano refuting ideas of his colleagues, Beard introducing new ideas, archaeologists like Carandini reporting latest finds and theories. Good luck in your studies.

Oh, I live in a small town in Pennsylvania. Even using the statewide interlibrary loan system materials are still hard to locate. That's why I rely on websites like SVR and NR and discussion lists like this for the majority of my insight.